Cairn offers India assets to ONGC for $3.8 b
New Delhi, February 24
Cairn Energy of the UK is believed to have offered to sell its Indian assets, which include the 1-billion barrel oilfield in Rajasthan, to the ONGC for $3.8 billion and may launch an initial public offer (IPO) if the sale failed.

GAIL inks pact with Aussie firm
Sydney, February 24
Indian gas giant GAIL has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with an Australian energy explorer Arrow Energy Ltd to form a joint venture to explore gas in Australia and India.

German-born violinist Jeanne-Christee plays a violin known as the Hammer made by renowned violin-maker Antonio Stradivari in 1707 at Christie’s auction house in London on Friday. The violin is expected to fetch between $1.5m and $2.5m when it is offered for auction in New York on May 16. — AFP

Oil firms to benefit from cut in rail freight
New Delhi, February 24
The oil companies facing losses worth thousands of crores will get a marginal relief following an 8 per cent cut in rail freight announced by the Railway Minister. However, they have ruled out any cut in the petrol and diesel prices.

Let shareholders decide on Mittal bid, says Lord Paul
Jalandhar, February 24
Jalandhar-born UK-based steel magnate, Lord Swraj Paul, today defended Lakshmi Niwas Mittal’s Arcelor takeover bid. He, however, pointed out that the issue between the two steel giants should be resolved by shareholders of the two companies but without any “noise” from the governments of the four European countries.

DaimlerChrysler’s Global Head for Development of S-Class, Hans Multhaupt (centre), Managing Director and CEO of DaimlerChrysler India, Wilfried Aulbur (right) and DaimlerChrysler’s Global Head of Engineering Technologies and Regulatory Affairs Bharat Balasubramanian (left) present the new S-Class Mercedes-Benz at a press conference in New Delhi on Friday. The luxury vehicle is priced at Rs 72 lakh. The company also unveiled the M-Class sedan for Rs 59 lakh.
— A Tribune photograph

Arcelor buys stake in Chinese firm
Paris:
European steel group Arcelor signed a deal to take a stake in a Chinese steelmaker on Friday but Chief Executive Guy Dolle said this was unrelated to the $23 billion takeover offer by Mittal Steel Co.

Indirect tax collections may go up
New Delhi, February 24
The Finance Ministry today said indirect tax collections are likely to cross Rs 2,00,000 crore this fiscal, well above the target of Rs 1,92,215 crore.

BSNL staff oppose new ADC norms
New Delhi, February 24
BSNL employees today strongly protested the new ADC regime announced by TRAI, saying that it was partial and favoured the private telecom companies.

Ultra Motors to launch electric vehicles
New Delhi, February 24
Displaying unique electric vehicle solutions, a privately-held English company — Ultra Motors — today said it is partnering with leaders in vehicle industry here to launch clean, electric vehicles in India.

Airbus trounces Boeing in getting orders
Singapore, February 24
Airbus upstaged its archrival Boeing at Asia’s top air show today, trumpeting new passenger jet orders worth up to $3.5 billion from India and Indonesia and another $1 billion deal with South Korea for building plane components.

SBI eyes bank in Bangladesh
Mumbai, February 24
The State Bank of India (SBI) said today it would spend up to $ 100 million for acquiring a small or medium-sized bank.

New Delhi, February 24
Cairn Energy of the UK is believed to have offered to sell its Indian assets, which include the 1-billion barrel oilfield in Rajasthan, to the ONGC for $3.8 billion and may launch an initial public offer (IPO) if the sale failed.

Cairn made the offer to sell off its 22.5 per cent stake in the Ravva oilfield, which produces about 50,000 barrels of crude oil per day, and a majority ownership in RJ-ON-90/1 block in Rajasthan, where more than 12 discoveries have been made establishing over 1 billion barrels of in-place oil reserves, in December, 2005, industry sources said.

The $ 3.8 billion asking price was also for Cairn’s interest in the Cambay basin block CB/OS-2, home to 130 million standard cubic feet per day producing Lakshmi and Gauri gas fields and a potential oilfield. However, Cairn’s Bangladesh assets are not part of the deal.

The sources said the ONGC found the asking price “too high” and had put a figure between $ 2and $ 2.2 billion.

While ONGC chairman Subir Raha was not available for comments, Cairn Energy spokesperson David Nisbet said “it was not the company policy to comment on market rumours.”

The sources said the relatively small Cairn, which did not have the $ 2 billion required for developing the Rajasthan oilfield and building the refinery to process the crude, was planning an IPO to raise finances and list the Indian subsidiary on local bourses within a year.

The ONGC is already partnering Cairn in Ravva and Cambay basin fields and had proposed to jointly build a Rs 8,000 crore refinery in Rajasthan.
— PTI

Sydney, February 24
Indian gas giant GAIL has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with an Australian energy explorer Arrow Energy Ltd to form a joint venture to explore gas in Australia and India.

The GAIL and Australian mining company joint venture would be according to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and finalised over the coming months. The Indian energy major is poised to pump in substantial money to find gas on Australian territory, a press note said here today.

GAIL is likely to invest Aus $500 million in its quest to find gas down under and elsewhere.

“Through this agreement we will have an injection of funds and the use of GAIL engineers on secondment, allowing us to rapidly accelerate our Australian development projects,” Arrow Chief Executive Nick Davies said in a
statement. — UNI

New Delhi, February 24
The oil companies facing losses worth thousands of crores will get a marginal relief following an 8 per cent cut in rail freight announced by the Railway Minister. However, they have ruled out any cut in the petrol and diesel prices.

According to an IOC official, “about 35-40 per cent of the 54 million tonnes petrol and diesel consumed annually is moved on rails and the cut in freight would result in savings in excess of Rs 160 crore to the oil industry.”

But it is unlikely to have any impact on the prices of petrol and diesel, as freight assumed to calculate the retail selling price of the two auto fuels was substantially lower than the new freight.

“The price build-up of petrol and diesel factors in a notional 50 per cent of the prevailing rail freight. The 8 per cent cut in rail freight will, therefore, not have an impact on the price build-up as the new freight charge would continue to be higher than what is accounted for in the price build-up,” he said. The move would, however, save the IOC between Rs 60 and 80 crore annually on moving petrol and diesel from refineries to inland consumption centres on rails.

Jalandhar, February 24
Jalandhar-born UK-based steel magnate, Lord Swraj Paul, today defended Lakshmi Niwas Mittal’s Arcelor takeover bid. He, however, pointed out that the issue between the two steel giants should be resolved by shareholders of the two companies but without any “noise” from the governments of the four European countries.

Mr Paul said that it was a commercial exercise and it was really unfortunate that too many governments got into it.

Refusing to accept that criticism from the governments and politicians of France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Spain sprung up due to alleged racial discrimination against Mr Mittal, Lord Swraj Paul said that such bid resistance keep on occurring in Europe every now and then.

“It is perhaps for the first time that such a case has come into light for the Indians that they have been talking loud about it,” he said, while interacting with The Tribune during his one-day visit to Jalandhar to attend the annual convocation of Dr B.R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology here today.

About his plans of starting any enterprise in Punjab, he said that he had held talks with the Punjab government officials during his visit to Chandigarh almost two years back but said that he was still trying to figure out as to what could be done. He, of course, hinted about his idea as he said: “Punjab does not have any motor car company. Now every automobile manufacturer wants to have its plant next door. If Punjab had any automobile manufacturing company, I would have been here like yesterday”.

Giving his opinion over India’s stand on WTO, Lord Paul said, “Every country must have its own stand. But I believe that agricultural subsidies can be disastrous. In the UK, they believe subsidies to be unfair.”

Paris: European steel group Arcelor signed a deal to take a stake in a Chinese steelmaker on Friday but Chief Executive Guy Dolle said this was unrelated to the $23 billion takeover offer by Mittal Steel Co.

Mr Dolle said he and his Board colleagues would start visiting investors next week to convince them to stay with Arcelor and not accept the unsolicited Mittal cash-and-shares bid, which has still not officially been launched.

“I am confident that I can convince them,” Mr Dolle told a telephone news conference on the deal to take a stake in China’s Laiwu Steel Corp, a unit of Laiwu Steel Group
Ltd.

Arcelor agreed with Laiwu to buy a 38.41 per cent stake in the Chinese company. Arcelor said it would pay a total of 2.085 billion yuan ($259.2 million) for the stake.

Asked to detail his strategic plan in response to the bid, he said, “allow me to inform the shareholders first.”

Lakshmi Mittal, head of Mittal Steel, is due to meet French Finance Minister Thierry Breton on Monday to try to convince him of the merits of his bid for
Arcelor.

WTO chief Pascal Lamy said France must get used to foreign takeover bids from countries such as India, following French protests over a bid by the Indian-born steel magnate for
Arcelor. — Reuters

New Delhi, February 24
The Finance Ministry today said indirect tax collections are likely to cross Rs 2,00,000 crore this fiscal, well above the target of Rs 1,92,215 crore.

Excise tax collection is likely to touch Rs 1,15,000 crore, while customs duty collections is expected to be Rs 64,000 crore and services tax will hopefully touch Rs 23,000 crore this fiscal, Central Board of Excise and Customs Chairman M. Jayaraman said in his address at an award function here.

According to official sources, indirect taxes were up by 16.2 per cent at Rs 1,53,988 crore during April-January, 2005-06.

Excise duty collections stood at Rs 85,030 crore during the first 10 months of this fiscal, while customs duty fetched Rs 52,754 crore to the government kitty and services tax collections were Rs 16,205 crore.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram said he sincerely hoped target for indirect tax collections would be achieved this fiscal.

“I don’t have doubts in my mind that you ( officials of customs and excise department) will exceed the target in customs duty, the question is by how much. And you will surpass the targets in services tax, the question again is by how much,” he said.

The Finance Minister said he would personally be very happy and satisfied if the excise duty target is achieved.

Excise, which was witnessing single digit growth till December, surged after a robust show in January when it grew by 20.6 per cent at Rs 10,010 crore, official sources said.

There are still over 34 days left in this fiscal, Mr Chidambaram said exhorting officials of the Excise Department to work with vigour to achieve the target.
— PTI

New Delhi, February 24
BSNL employees today strongly protested the new ADC regime announced by TRAI, saying that it was partial and favoured the private telecom companies.

“TRAI has once again shown its partiality and favour to the private telecom companies by drastically reducing the ADC to be paid by the private operators to BSNL for providing telephones in the rural areas, which are financially unviable but socially essential, to fulfil the commitment of the government,” Mr V.A.N. Namboodiri, convener of the BSNL Employees Union, said.

Instead of
calculating the ADC on the basis of period of talk (per minute) for STD and locals as earlier, the new procedure for payment of ADC is calculated as only 1.55 per cent of the adjusted gross revenue, which will reduce the present ADC from Rs 5,300 crore to Rs 2,000 crore, a reduction of Rs 3,300 crore, which would
adversely affect the development plans of BSNL.

The ADC continues in ILD calls but is substantially reduced for incoming from Rs 3.20 to Rs 1.60 and on outgoing calls from Rs 2.50 to 0.80 per minute.

The union would hold demonstrations all over the country on March 1, demanding review of the decision and restoration of the ADC.

New Delhi, February 24
Displaying unique electric vehicle solutions, a privately-held English company — Ultra Motors — today said it is partnering with leaders in vehicle industry here to launch clean, electric vehicles in India.

Having spent three years refining the technology to adapt it for Indian conditions the company will be launching first products, electric two-wheeled vehicles later this year in collaboration with Indian partners, Chief Executive Paul Dyson Ultra Motors said today.

“Our first motor products are being manufactured in India currently, for incorporation into the first vehicles... In addition, we have second-generation products ready to be commercialised,” Mr Dyson said.

Our three-wheeler demonstration vehicle, which runs at 50 km per hour carrying a load of 500 kg for 100 km on single charge, shows that the technology is not only affordable, clean and quiet but is also scalable to heavy-duty applications, he said.

British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science and Innovation Lord Sainsbury rode vehicles powered by Ultra Motors here.

Sainsbury has pioneered a major initiative driving the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership (a UK Government initiative for clean transport technologies), a company statement said.

The company has wholly-owned subsidiaries in India and Russia, it said.
— PTI

Singapore, February 24
Airbus upstaged its archrival Boeing at Asia’s top air show today, trumpeting new passenger jet orders worth up to $3.5 billion from India and Indonesia and another $1 billion deal with South Korea for building plane components.

Since Monday, Airbus has won aircraft orders worth as much as $6 billion, from three Asian carriers, while Boeing finalised one order that could earn it as much as $1.4 billion.

Boeing Co made no new major announcements today at the Asian Aerospace show, which wraps up on Sunday, but issued low-key statements on pacts with two aviation service centres in this region to repair and overhaul Boeing planes.

Airbus said it received orders for a total of 40 A320 planes from two budget airlines, Indonesia’s Adam Air and India’s GoAir. The A320s have a list price of about $70 million each.

Adam Air wants 30 leased and purchased A320s to replace its aging fleet of Boeing 737s over the next five years, Chief Operating Officer Dave Fikarno Laksono said.

He said the European single-aisle, 180-seat jets have an edge over the 737s in lower fuel and maintenance costs.

GoAir placed a firm order for 10 of A320s and took an option to buy 10 more. GoAir gave detail of the deal in New Delhi yesterday but Airbus’ formal announcement came today in Singapore.
— AP

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and film actress Hema Malini launch the next Generation Water Purifier-Kent Mineral RO with patent Technology at a press conference in New Delhi on Friday.
— A Tribune photograph

Punjab’s VAT reliefChandigarh, February 24In a relief to the electronic goods manufacturing industry, the Government of Punjab has added a new provision of Rule 5-A to the deferment and exemption conditions under the Punjab VAT Act, 2005. The deferment and exemption conditions exclusively deal with the units manufacturing electronic goods in the state. As per this amendment, a person purchasing goods from exempted unit would now be entitled to deduct such purchase from its sale turnover and pay tax on value addition only. Further details can be had from the official website, www.pextax.com.
— TNS

REVL listingMumbai, February 24Reliance Energy Ventures Ltd (REVL), made its debut on the bourses today. REVL’s Rs 10 share opened at Rs 48.90 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE). The volumes were high with 96.96 lakh shares traded so far on the NSE. On the Bombay Stock Exchange, REVL opened at Rs 45.7 and touched a high of Rs 46 and a low of Rs 42.9.
— UNI

Inflation downNew Delhi, February 24The annual rate of inflation, calculated on a point-to-point basis, stood at 4.02 per cent for the week ended February 11 as against 4.08 per cent for the previous week, mainly due to lower prices of raw cotton, cotton seed and groundnut seed. The wholesale price index for all commodities rose by 0.2 per cent to 196.6 from 196.2 for the previous week.
— UNI

Deutsche BankNew Delhi, February 24Foraying into India’s stressed asset business in a big way, foreign banking major Deutsche Bank has bought NPAs worth Rs 75 crore from the Asset Reconstruction Company of India (Arcil). The
Germany-based bank acquired 100 per cent of the Security Receipts in respect of a portfolio of NPAs of an Indian bank with a face value of Rs 75 crore beating other contenders, the bank said in a release. The transaction was initiated and facilitated by ARCIL, which buys NPAs of banks at a discounted price, securitises them and sell security receipts to prospective buyers.
— PTI